New Books in Military History
Episodes
Stefan Rinke, "Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan" (Oxford UP, 2023)
22 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Five hundred years ago, a flotilla landed on the coast of Yucatán under the command of the Spanish conquistador Hérnan Cortés. While the official g...
Mani Sharpe, "Late-Colonial French Cinema: Filming the Algerian War of Independence" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Late-Colonial French Cinema: Filming the Algerian War of Independence, Mani Sharpe peploys the term “late-colonial” to describe (mostly) Frenc...
Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, "Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2018)
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence tha...
Sofya Aptekar, "Green Card Soldier: Between Model Immigrant and Security Threat" (MIT Press, 2023)
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While the popular image of the US military is one of citizen soldiers protecting their country, the reality is that nearly 5 percent of all first-time...
Jade McGlynn, "Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why aren't ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin's own historical propaganda narratives, Russia's invasio...
Leslie Turnberg, "Mandate: The Palestine Crucible, 1919-1939" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2021)
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The twenty years between the World Wars saw remarkable changes in the Middle East. In Palestine, Britain struggled to maintain its Mandatory Authority...
Alfred J. Rieber, "Stalin As Warlord" (Yale UP, 2022)
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Second World War was arguably the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. In Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022), eminen...
Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films...
Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war--and why ...
Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)
09 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in...
Justin Jordan, "And Then I Cried: Stories of a Mortuary NCO" (Tactical 16, 2012)
08 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In And Then I Cried: Stories of a Mortuary NCO (Tactical 16, 2012), Justin Jordan details life as an Air Force Mortuary Non Commissioned Officer. I...
Rotem Kowner, "Tsushima" (Oxford UP, 2022)
07 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Rotem Kowner about Tsushima (Oxford UP, 2022), which is part of the great battle series in Oxford University press. The Battle of...
Andrew Harding, "A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, Death and Defiance in Ukraine" (Ithaka, 2023)
07 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From 2-13 March 2022 - only a week into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine - Russian forces tried and failed to take and hold Voznesensk, a small...
Danny Orbach, "Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War" (Pegasus Books, 2022)
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Danny Orbach about his book Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War (Pegasus Books, 2022). Shrouded in gover...
Meryl Ain, "Shadows We Carry" (Sparkspress, 2023)
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Meryl Ain's Shadows We Carry (Sparkspress, 2023) is a follow-up to the author’s 2020 novel, The Takeaway Men, focuses on fraternal twins Bronka ...
Peter Stansky, "The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War" (Stanford UP, 2023)
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Few English writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His literary output at on...
Michael O'Hanlon, "Military History for the Modern Strategist: America's Major Wars Since 1861" (Brookings, 2023)
01 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The recent conclusion to the war in Afghanistan — America’s longest and one of its most frustrating — serves as a vivid reminder of the unpredic...
Samuel Helfont, "Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order" (Oxford UP, 2023)
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The move away from post-Cold War unipolarity and the rise of revisionist states like Russia and China pose a rapidly escalating and confounding threat...
Kaya Sahin, "Peerless Among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman" (Oxford UP, 2023)
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Süleyman, who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566, was a globally recognized figure during his lifetime. In Peerless Among Princes: The ...
David E. Kelly, "First Fights in Fallujah: Marines During Operation Vigilant Resolve, in Iraq, April 2004" (Casemate, 2023)
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2004, the unprovoked ambush killing and desecration of the bodies of American civilian security contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, caused the Nat...
Alan Bollard, "Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars" (Oxford UP, 2020)
26 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Wartime is not just about military success. Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars (Oxford University ...
Craig Nelson, "V Is For Victory: Franklin Roosevelt's American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II" (Scribner, 2023)
24 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As Nazi Germany began to conquer Europe, America’s military was unprepared, too small, and poorly supplied. The Nazis were supported by robust Germa...
Thomas W. Lippman, "Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
24 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United Stat...
Giulia Pecorella, "The United States of America and the Crime of Aggression" (Routledge, 2021)
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Giulia Pecorella's The United States of America and the Crime of Aggression (Routledge, 2021) traces the position of the United States of America o...
M. Todd Bennett, "Neither Confirm Nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency" (Columbia UP, 2022)
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the Soviet K-129 submarine sank in the Pacific Ocean in 1968, the CIA saw a possible treasure trove of intelligence information on Soviet militar...
Liisa Kovala, "Surviving Stutthof: My Father's Ordeal in a Nazi Concentration Camp" (Latitude 46, 2017)
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the first Russian bombs drop on Oulu, Finland in early 1940 during the Winter War, Aarne Kovala is a young boy with a great love of the sea. While ...
David Stahel, "Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz G...
Nicole Wegner, "Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
18 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) by Dr. Nicole Wegner is not a book about peacekeep...
Margot Tudor, "Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Margot...
Lin Poyer, "War at the Margins: Indigenous Experiences in World War II" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)
17 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Eighty years on, Lin Poyer's book War at the Margins: Indigenous Experiences in World War II (U Hawaii Press, 2022) offers a global and comparative ...
Tanvi Srivastava, trans., "The War Diary of Asha-san: From Tokyo to Netaji's Indian National Army" (Harper Collins, 2022)
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On a trip many years ago to New Delhi, I was struck by an official memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose, the wartime leader of the Indian National Army, th...
Alison S. Fell, "Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women, c.1850-1945" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alison S. Fell's book Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women, c.1850-1945 (Cambridge UP, 2023) examines women warriors as vehicles of ...
Nicholas W. S. Smith, "Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the countries bordering the Red Sea are riven with instability. Why are the region's contemporary problems so persistent and interlinked? Throu...
R. T. Howard, "Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler" (Oxford UP, 2023)
11 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Exactly a century ago, intelligence agencies across Europe first became aware of a fanatical German nationalist whose political party was rapidly gath...
Peter H. Wilson, "Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500" (Harvard UP, 2023)
10 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the...
New Histories of Violence in and around the Second World War
10 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why does state-led and intercommunal violence occur? How do past episodes of mass violence reverberate in the present? How do victims and perpetrators...
Drone: Remote Control Warfare
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Drone Warfare is the first comprehensive analysis of one of the fastest growing--and most secretive--fronts in global conflict: the rise of robot war...
Lawrence Freedman, "Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine" (Oxford UP, 2022)
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Command in war is about forging effective strategies and implementing them, making sure that orders are appropriate, well-communicated, and then obeye...
Tobias Ide, "Catastrophes, Confrontations, and Constraints: How Disasters Shape the Dynamics of Armed Conflicts" (MIT Press, 2023)
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Armed conflict and natural disasters have plagued the twenty-first century. Not since the end of World War II has the number of armed conflicts been h...
Randy Grigsby, "A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019)
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Euro...
Jonathan Abel, "Guibert's General Essay on Tactics" (Brill, 2021)
04 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"'The God of War' is near to revealing himself, because we have heard his prophet." So wrote Jean Colin, naming Napoleon the God of War and Jacques-An...
Kidada E. Williams, "I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in...
Arthur Snell, "How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan (1997-2021)" (Canbury Press, 2022)
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur Snell's book How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan (1997-2021) (Canbury Press, 2022) critically as...
Scott McGaugh, "Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II" (Osprey, 2023)
28 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This book distills war down to individual young men climbing into defenseless gliders made of plywood, ready to trust the towing aircraft that would p...
Strategy and Saratoga: A Conversation with Kevin Weddle
27 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the Battle of Saratoga, the tide of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of unlikely victors: the American patriots. What were the major strateg...
Suzanne Sutherland, "The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe" (Cornell UP, 2022)
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe (Cornell UP, 2022), Suzanne Sutherland explores the role ...
Robert Kershaw, "Dünkirchen 1940: The German View of Dunkirk" (Osprey, 2022)
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The surprise success of the German offensive in the West that commenced on May 10, 1940 caught the Allies completely off-guard, and France would soon ...
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, "A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War" (Knopf, 2023)
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The history of reportage has often depended on outsiders--Ryszard Kapuściński witnessing the fall of the shah in Iran, Frances FitzGerald observing ...
Carlo Parisi, "Dagger Fencing: The Italian School" (Fallen Rook, 2016)
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, fighting with dagger versus dagger, or with knife versus knife, is not a common scenario that people might expect to face. However, it was more...
Simon Geissbühler, ed., "Romania and the Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath" (Ibidem Press, 2016)
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From summer 1941 onwards, Romania actively pursued at its own initiative the mass killing of Jews in the territories it controlled. 1941 saw 13,000 Je...
Thom Shanker and Andrew Hoehn, "Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats" (Hachette Books, 2023)
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time...
The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why should we study Robert E. Lee? Why did he make the fateful decision to betray his country? How should we judge Robert E. Lee? Allen C. Guelzo, Dir...
Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"The Ukrainian nation will emerge from this war more united and certain of its identity than at any other point in its modern history," writes Serhii ...
Philip Clayton Shackelford, "Rise of the Mavericks: The U.S. Air Force Security Service and the Cold War" (US Naval Institute Press, 2023)
07 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. Air Force had to struggle to establish itself as an independent branch of the American military, and originally was an extension of the Army....
Robin Bartlett, "Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History" (Casemate, 2023)
06 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Robin Bartlett about his new book Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History (Casemate, 2023). The year 1968 was arguably the...
Mark Galeotti, "Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Galeotti's book Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involv...
Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and suppo...
Tim Clarkson, "A Mighty Fleet and the King's Power: The Isle of Man, AD 400 To 1265" (John Donald, 2023)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is like a stepping-stone between the lands that surround it. In medieval times, it played an ...
Michael W. Hankins, "Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia" (Cornell UP, 2021)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Cornell UP, 2021) brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when...
Stéfanie von Hlatky, "Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations" (Oxford UP, 2022)
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing launched the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Successive UN Security Council resoluti...
Deborah Bauer, "Marianne Is Watching: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and the Origins of the French Surveillance State" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the French Third Republic sought to rebuild its strength to avenge its defeat and secu...
Scott Carney and Jason Miklian, "The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation" (Ecco Press, 2022)
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In November 1970, a storm set a collision course with the most densely populated coastline on Earth. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bh...
Robin Prior, "Conquer We Must: A Military History of Britain, 1914-1945" (Yale UP, 2022)
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of histor...
B. A. Friedman, "On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines" (US Naval Institute Press, 2021)
28 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines (US Naval Institute Press, 2021) traces the history of the development of military staffs and...
Beth Bailey, "An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era" (UNC Press, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By the Tet Offensive in early 1968, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as...
Benjamin L. Carp, "The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution" (Yale UP, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
New York City, the strategic center of the Revolutionary War, was the most important place in North America in 1776. That summer, an unruly rebel army...
Tom Hutton, "Hitler's Maladies and Their Impact on World War II" (Texas Tech UP, 2023)
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Toward the end of World War II, Hitler's many health complications became even more pronounced, making an evil man yet more erratic and dangerous. Whi...
George Black, "The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam" (Knopf, 2023)
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny ...
Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman, "Beyond the Pale: The Holocaust in the North Caucasus" (U Rochester Press, 2020)
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman's edited volume Beyond the Pale: The Holocaust in the North Caucasus (U Rochester Press, 2020) is the first book...
John Lisle, "The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
21 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D...
Cao Yin, "Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942-45" (Oxford UP, 2022)
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since the outbreak of the Pacific War, British India had been taken as the main logistic base for China's war against the Japanese. Chinese soldiers, ...
Elena Pedigo Clark, "Trauma and Truth: Teaching Russian Literature on the Chechen Wars" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The collapse of the USSR was relatively bloodless. The Chechen Wars were not. A tiny nation on the edge of Russia, Chechnya brought one of the largest...
Nicholas Guyatt, "The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison" (Basic Books, 2022)
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the War of 1812, more than five thousand American sailors were marooned in Dartmoor Prison on a barren English plain; the conflict was over but ...
Jeffrey E. Stern, "The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War" (PublicAffairs, 2023)
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had...
Karen E. Eccles and Debbie McCollin, "World War II and the Caribbean" (U West Indies Press, 2017)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Karen E. Eccles and Debbie McCollin edited volume World War II and the Caribbean (U West Indies Press, 2017) focuses on one of the most exciting per...
Piotr M. A. Cywiński, "Auschwitz: A Monograph on the Human" (Muzeum Auschwitz, 2022)
16 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Auschwitz is perhaps the best-known memorial site in the world. Epicenter of the Nazi extermination campaign of Europe’s Jewish population, the Ausc...
Heidi Langbein-Allen, "Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler's Army" (Pen & Sword Military, 2022)
16 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Heidi Langbein-Allen about Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler's Army (Pen & Sword Military, 2022). Willi Lan...
Arthur W. Gullachsen, "Bloody Verrières: the I. SS-Panzerkorps Defence of the Verrières-Bourguebus Ridges (Volume 2) (Casemate, 2023)
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
South of the Norman city of Caen, Verrières Ridge was seen a key stepping-stone for the British Second Army if it was to break out of the Normandy br...
David Chrisinger, "The Soldier's Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II" (Penguin, 2023)
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ernie Pyle, a legendary journalist and war correspondent, was widely considered one of the greatest chroniclers of World War II. His dispatches from t...
Samuel Ramani, "Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution" (Hurst, 2023)
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Even as Vladimir Putin massed close to 200,000 troops on Ukraine's border in February 2022, many experts claimed it was a bluff. At worst he would tak...
Lachlan McNamee, "Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop" (Princeton UP, 2023)
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past few centuries, vast areas of the world have been violently colonized by settlers. But why did states like Australia and the United State...
Andrew Long, "Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations from Both Sides of the Iron Curtain" (Pen and Sword History, 2022)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Cold War was a major geopolitical contest between the United States and the Soviet Union over predominance over the entire world. Unlike the previ...
Lauren Kay Johnson, "The Fine Art of Camouflage" (MilSpeak Books, 2023)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lauren Kay Johnson is just seven when she first experiences a sacrifice of war as her mother, a nurse in the Army Reserves, deploys in support of Oper...
Iain MacGregor, "The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II" (Scribner, 2022)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
To the Soviet Union, the sacrifices that enabled the country to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II are sacrosanct. The foundation of the Soviets’ h...
Alexander Rose, "The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a Confederate Navy" (Mariner Books, 2022)
08 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy who came to Britain to turn the tide...
Steve Kemper, "Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)
08 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor (Mariner Books, 2022) is a riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the per...
Helene J. Sinnreich, "The Atrocity of Hunger: Starvation in the Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow Ghettos during World War II" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During World War II, the Germans put the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland into ghettos which restricted their movement and, most crucially for their survi...
Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, "Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia" (Oxford UP, 2023)
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia (Oxford UP, 2023) is a compelling, meticulous narrative of the way national security...
Ari Joskowicz, "Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust" (Princeton UP, 2023)
02 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Ari Joskowicz, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Vanderbilt University, is the author of Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Hol...
Susan R. Grayzel, "The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, we sit down with Dr. Susan R. Grayzel, Professor of History at Utah State University to discuss The Age of the Gas Mask: How British...
Gary Kulik: Conscientious Objector Who Served in Vietnam
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Kulik was a Catholic Conscientious Objector (CO) during the Vietnam War, but when he was drafted he decided to go and serve as a medic. He tells ...
Rebecca Herman, "Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America" (Oxford UP, 2022)
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the Second World War, the United States built over two hundred defense installations on sovereign soil in Latin America in the name of cooperat...
Karen Baum Gordon, "The Last Letter: A Father's Struggle, a Daughter's Quest, and the Long Shadow of the Holocaust" (U Tennessee Press, 2021)
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Born a German Jew in 1915, Rudy Baum was eighty-six years old when he sealed the garage door of his Dallas home, turned on the car ignition, and tried...
David Wright Faladé, "Black Cloud Rising" (Grove Press, 2022)
26 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer ...
Nadia Abu El-Haj, "Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America" (Verso, 2022)
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most recognizable tropes in American society in the past few decades is the scarred war veteran, returning from foreign lands with wounds b...
Woody Holton, "Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the ...
Tom Dunkel, "White Knights in the Black Orchestra: The Extraordinary Story of the Germans Who Resisted Hitler" (Hachette Books, 2021)
19 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
They were a small group of conspirators who risked their lives by plotting relentlessly to obstruct and destroy the Third Reich from within. The Gesta...
Cathal J. Nolan, "Mercy: Humanity in War" (Oxford UP, 2022)
19 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mercy: Humanity in War (Oxford University Press, 2022) gathers and explores acts of singular mercy, giving them form and substance across wars, caus...
Simon Parkin, "The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp" (Scribner, 2022)
18 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp (Scribner, 2022 is the “r...
Ellin Bessner, "Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II" (New Jewish Press, 2018)
18 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Ellin Bessner about her book Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II (New Jewish Press, 2018). "He died so Je...